I'd have brought you the scoffing tweet from the Noble Baron ffoukes, but much to my delight and indeed pride, his magnificence, the old duffer, has gone and blocked me on Twitter. Must be something I said about Labour aristocrats being ever so slightly oxymoronic.
He's a snappy dresser is George. Look how his tie goes with his nose.
I believe that Scottish Labour's answer to Einstein, James Kelly, also had fun mocking the new crossing. He called it an SNP vanity project, and Elaine Murray said that the case for the bridge was overblown, was sucking up a great deal of money and had only been built so that the SNP had something they could show that they delivered. Of course engineers had been saying for a long time that the bridge was doing far more work and carrying far more weight daily than had ever been envisaged when it was built in 1964. Turns out that the engineers were right and the combined wisdom of his Baronness (as opposed to baroness), Mr Kelly, Ms Murray and Mr Hothersall, were wrong. I suspect that, had we had a Labour government when the first problems of the bridge came to light, we would now be looking at a very different picture for the economy of Edinburgh and Fife.
Just saw this on the Twitter feed. No apologies for a second post on Labour in as many days. It's all about an important part of politics that appears to be disintegrating in front of our very eyes. The Record's piece, albeit damning for the Labour Party which they have supported through thick and thin, to the left and to the right, for as long as I can remember, is narrow here. It talks as if single mums were the only people to suffer under Osborne's budget. They are not, as I'm sure some people are about to find out.
I've just spent the last hour with a staunch Labour supporter. Somewhere in his late 60s, he has been a Labour man all his life. He voted NO in the referendum, although he loathes almost everything about Britain from the monarchy and the House of Lords down, because it was Labour's line.
He thinks Labour is finished for at least 10 years, possibly forever, and he considers Blair almost single handedly responsible for the mess.
I've yet to meet a Labour supporter in Scotland that has anything but utter contempt for Blair. I haven't much of an idea how they feel about him in England, but I was much amused to see when I got back on-line that Blair has waded in to the leadership battle by advising people not to vote for Corbyn. I wonder how many people, at least in Scotland, have had their minds made up by that intervention! If Blair dislikes him then it's a pretty safe bet that he's a sound man.
Talking of Blair, I'm sure you will have already seen Stuart's piece on his inability to see Britnationalism as nationalism. What a stupid, as well as evil, man he is. And talking of stupid, how's this for an attitude. We lost the election so it no longer matters what we do or don't do! In other words: We are pointless!
So who, apart from the Tories, could knock this speech?
It was, as custom dictates, respectful in every way to her predecessor, Douglas Alexander, both for the work he did in the constituency, and for the way that he graciously accepted his defeat.
It talked about her constituency and its attributes including its distinction of being William Wallace's birthplace!... Of course she mentioned its high level of poverty and deprivation.
It discussed the way that people who have already been dealt a poor hand in life have been driven, by the Tory and Liberal government, to a point where they have lost all dignity and broken down crying with utter frustration and misery.
It pointed out that there is one set of rules for ordinary people and one set for the elite, like MPs. Mhairi is 20. She earns over £40,000 a year. Either of these facts would disqualify her from entitlement to subsidised housing (Housing Benefit), were she not one of the chosen few.
The speech praised one of the Labour Party's (and Mhairi's) heroes, Tony Benn, (incidentally a man violently opposed to Scottish independence), dating from back in the day when Labour was a socialist party.
Finally it pointed out the indisputable fact that in the UK parliament, the SNP and the Labour party should be working together against the policies of the Tories, and it offered the hand of friendship to the Labour benches.
Through it all there was sadness and humour and most of all, honesty.
Can you seriously imagine that a genuine Labour supporter could criticise this speech?
