BETTER TOGETHER POOLING AND SHARING JOB LOSSES

They told us that the only way to save jobs in HMRC, was to vote No. (An independent Scotland wouldn't, it seemed, have needed tax collectors???)

Cumbernauld HMRC with Jim, making sure that their jobs were safe.

Indeed, they even managed to get people from HMRC to stand outside with banners proclaiming their jobs were only safe within the pooling and sharing UKOK. Save our UK jobs! Vote NO, they pleaded with us!

You'll maybe find this a little hard to believe, but apparently they lied.

And the irony is that these job losses will be happening in a department that has just been slated by a Commons committee for gross incompetence, and customer services that would make Attila the Hun Enterprises look friendly and magnanimous. 

And why are they so inefficient? Well, because they have too much work and not enough staff.

Fifty per cent of calls to HMRC go unanswered  because there's no one to answer them, and no one seems to be available to deal with the thousands of tax dodgers' names given to them by the HSBC leaker.

You'd have thought that given Gideon is short of cash, that he has to take food our of kids' mouths, he might have though it worthwhile to get his hands on the billions that the super rich have been salting away in Switzerland.

Chris and Stewart with union representatives
outside the Dundee Office

Somewhere between one and two thousand jobs will be lost in Scotland, including the closure of the offices in, yes, you guessed it, Cumbernauld. My home town of Dundee will also suffer substantial job losses.

So maybe Jim, who in fairness lost his own job following the great Pooling and Sharing, and who is now working as a conflict resolution consultant, can pop back from wherever he's creating chaos and disharmony at the moment and explain just how these UK jobs in Cumbernauld were served best by pooling and sharing within the UK. He might try resolving the conflict that he caused by advising these staff members that voting NO would save their jobs.

Good luck with that Spud.

MUNGUIN'S MIDWEEK MÉLANGE

Sarah Champion. Generous to a fault for our brave boys... She put her wreath on expenses.

Big occasions are glittering and star studded with the so-called great and the so called good.
No-one sees when you give a homeless soldier a few quid to help him out.

That's about how we see it.

We remember. It started just one day after the referendum.

Great speaker, friendly, sincere and  intelligent.
Good luck Chris.

Yeah yeah, whatever Ed.

Bye Danny

Nicola in our local food bank.

What is the sense of science that can put a man on the moon, yet is incapable
of putting a bit of bread on the table of every human being?

I wonder if this one was produced in England too...

Busy, busy, busy....

Just in case you thought that Rachel Reevese represented nasty, right-wing
Islington Labour, Johnny boy confirms that the unemployed
 are bugger all to do with Labour.

I'd not go in that place with my wallet in my back pocket
unless I could get a padlock for it and an AK49.

And today it was confirmed that there will be no change in the government of Israel.

So we can expect to see more of this kind of thing. We are sure that there are atrocities on both sides. (In which wars are there not?) But it seems to us that our media is reluctant to report anything from the Palestinian point of view. So here's a little balancing. There are any number of pictures of similar barbarity on the net.

So, now you know.

If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an accord with Israel. It's natural, we took their country. It's true that God promised it to us, but in what way does that concern them? Our God isn't theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing. We came and we stole their country. Why should they accept that?
(David Ben Gurion. The first prime minister of Israel, quoted by Nahum Goldmann in The Jewish Paradox.)

MUNGUIN MEETS THE STARS

The Libations (or some of them) with their biggest fan

Munguin, as you know, has a fair number of friends in political high places. Honourable gentlemen and Excellencies are numbered among his close confidants.

And of course not so long ago he presented Pétula Clark with a box of Thornton's chocolates, with only a couple nibbled (he likes soft centres), at Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall, to celebrate her 72 years in showbusiness and a new album in the charts. 

Today he made further strides in the world of show business by meeting his own personal favourite boy band, The Libations. The guys were in Dundee to promote the single, Caledonia, which everyone on here now knows off by heart, is raising money for food banks.

It was a treat for Tris too, to meet such brilliant musicians and truly lovely people. We spent some time together walking through the centre of Dundee. Somehow it felt like we were friends who had known each other forever. I want to thank them for playing along and being such fantastic sports. I'm sorry to have missed Richy, but there will be another time, I know it.

La la la la la la .... It's the guitar that's out of tune!!!

The town was buzzing, Big Chris was there with his big blue goddess, the Spirit of Independence (seen just behind Munguin as he was just getting his vocal chords warmed up for his solo). On the other side of us Blair Jenkins and Shona Robison were there talking to people as they passed by. The streets were full of kids waving saltires and people with yes badges. It was like a carnival.

Great afternoon... So nice to see the town buzzing with excitement.

Tomorrow we will know if the lads, and Caledonia have made it to the charts. (Update It entered the chart at #16. Good start. Now let's get it in the top 10!) Fingers crossed. The more sales, the more money for hungry kids. You can buy up to midnight tonight!

Thanks for coming to Dundee and for a great afternoon guys.

GREAT EVENING AT STEPS THEATRE

A brief post on a hugely successful and motivating evening spent in the company of some excellent speakers last night in Dundee.

The sage at the Steps Theatre

Organised by Yes Dundee and chaired, once again, by the estimable Stuart Fairweather (Trade Unionists for Independence) there were Robin McAlpine (Common Weal), Chris Law (Spirit of Independence), Libby McArthur (actress and writer), Jim Sillars (politician, trade unionist, writer and speaker) and Craig Murray (diplomat, writer, broadcaster and human right activist).

The atmosphere fair bristled with emotion as all the participants spoke, with passion, to their strengths. 

Munguin was pleased to welcome
 Mr Murray to Dundee

Craig talked about how corrupt the current UK state is and cited examples drawn from his own experiences as a top level diplomat in the FCO. The most compelling were about the UK's involvement in torture in Uzbekistan, a state many times more corrupt and repugnant than Iraq, and yet close friends of the UK (now, I think, being advised by none of than Blair, who it appears will do anything, no matter how disgusting, for money). He also pointed out that when the Uk went to war illegally in Iraq, in the sure knowledge that the UN would have forbidden it had they been consulted, everyone in government knew perfectly well that there were no WMDs. Hundreds of thousand of people died, were maimed, lost their livelihoods and indeed their country thanks to that deceit. Blair got a congressional medal.

Libby McArthur

Libby brought levity and comedy to the evening. Having met Tris's mum in the ladies' room prior to the meeting she referred a couple of times to her during her talk. Amongst many other topics she talked about how we no longer have many shows made here in Scotland; everything is done from London and most of her friends have had to leave Scotland to get work in theatres in London. Indeed the big shows that come to Glasgow and Edinburgh originate in London and star English actors. 

Chris and his Spirit of Independence, the Big Blue Goddess

Chris Law explained his crowd funded project of the big blue fire engine and its journey around Scotland taking information to people in towns, cities, villages and hamlets around the country. I love the slogan "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has."

Robin McAlpine

Robin McAlpine has to been seen to be believed. I've never hear a man pack so many words into such a short space. But he talks my language. Common Weal is so appealing to me. The thing that struck me was his comparison with Norway. Now he admitted that there are a lot of variables to consider when you look at the comparison of life styles between two different countries with different tax systems and prices etc, etc, but none the less He pointed out that the average wage in the UK is £25,000  and the bottom 10% average on £6,000. In Norway the average wage is £45,000 and the bottom 10% average out at around £25,000. We dont have to live under a horribly imbalanced regime where 1 in four kinds is living in poverty but there are 100 + billionaires in the country.

Jim Sillars... and Margo

Jim Sillars is an inspirational speaker. There's no nonsense about him. He wants a decent society, one his generation, he admits, failed miserably to provide for Scots. He sees (as Robin does) a huge opportunity to re-industrialise the country. He talked with such passion about some of the dreadful wastelands in the west, North Lanarkshire, Dunbartonshire, South Lanarkshire... areas around Glasgow, where people live under awful conditions, beaten down by the utter hopelessness of terrible housing, bad health, no suitable jobs that pay enough money that you don't have to claim benefits just to pay the rent, and then be called a benefit cheat by some toff from the House of Lords.

The emotion Jim put into his piece spread out across the audience through countless bursts of applause. And of course he paid a tribute, with a catch in his voice, to Margo.

The place was pretty packed and like every other meeting like this that I've been to, the friendliness and warmth of the crowd was something to be marvelled at. New friends were made.

We are creating a new Scotland here.  

We can do this. 

We just need to redouble our efforts over the next few weeks. The reward will be a much better life for our kids adn hopefully for us too.
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For fellow Dundonians, tomorrow promises a visit from Blair Jenkins, Spirit of Independence  and our own group, the Libations will be busking around Dundee promoting Caledonia. If you can get out and see the lads, I'm sure they will be happy so say hello. Munguin and I are hoping to get out to meet them.... and you. Say hello if you see us.
**********

Finally, I have no time for Jim Murphy. In fact I can't stand the bloke. He is a red Tory who has gone around his 100 streets lying through his teeth, refusing to answer awkward questions, and whining about a bit of barracking that any kind of a politician should be able to handle, but (although I take the point that eggs are really pretty inoffensive weapons...unlike the ones that Jim voted to be used on Iraqis), we should all be able to speak our minds without being assaulted. 

So because I feel strongly about any kind of violence, like Easy Peasy blog, I publish this picture of the person who is alleged to be the egg thrower in the hopes that some of the thousands of readers of Munguin's Republic will recognise him and dob him in. If he is not, then he should come forward and clear himself.

We can do this without eggs you half wit.