THINGS AREN'T LOOKING TOO GOOD FOR BLAIR

It's not often, indeed very rarely, that I can say that I agree with George, but this time... well, what can I say? He's right.

And Alex is on this big time. Of course I more often agree with him.

As Mr Salmond says, it's not just Blair; it's members of his cabinet, MoD, Civil Servants, Number 10 staff, and probably most of all, Jack Straw.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Oooops. Now we know why you like your system better, Kez.

How's that again George?
Good luck in the London Mayoral elections, by the way.
The last poll I saw you were on...erm 0%
What odds are you getting on that?

Reasonable, but some of them are far from nice. As Mr Corbyn, or for that matter Ms Dugdale or Ms Lamont. They might not think they were too nice.

Here we go again. YAWN.

Uh huh, well that worked a treat, didn't it?

Maybe he could become a gardener. I suspect they won't want him back as a towel folder.

I know you are too much of a gentleman to do it Humza, but I know what I tell the wee junior minister.
It would start and end with F.

We would if we were independent. And will when we are independent.

If you laugh at a child who is different, he will laugh with you because his innocence exceeds your ignorance
(but only just).

Both Abu and Helena have recommended THIS post on Wee Ginger Dug. 

I was asked to reproduce it here, but I'm sure that Wee Ginger Dug has more readers than I do (many of them the same) and I'm not quite sure it's the thing to do to reproduce another blogger's work, but what I'm happy to do is recommend it in case you missed it, as I had.

McTERNAN OUT OF HIS DEPTH AS USUAL

I'd forgotten this excellent wee interview from Mr Snow with Galloway and McTernan. 

It never ceases to amaze me that people go to McT for an opinion on anything. He's almost physically attached to Blair and anyone who worships at his feet. Blair can do no wrong. Blair is perfection. Anyone could do the interview for him and take the fee, even a donkey. Actually on reflection a donkey would be far more agreeable, visually and aurally. 

I just thought you might fancy a wee laugh as Jon finished him off here.

Oh and, just how long after that interview did Blair resign, or was he sacked?

Another prediction bites the dust...

Random Thoughts

Natalie with Humza

In an effort to get Glasgow Man back on board, Labour has been whinging about how mean the Government in Edinburgh has been to Scotland's biggest city.

That's the same Labour that only a few years ago, when it was in coalition with the Liberals, managed to give back money to London at the end of the year, presumably because everything was so peachy in Scotland (including Glasgow) that the money was simply not needed. 

I'm not an expert on Glasgow but I'd lay money on it that there will have been some need that could have been fulfilled by that money that went back to London. After all you don;t have life expectancy rates lower than Gaza in a town that is all tickety boo!

Natalie McGarry, the SNP candidate for Glasgow East, Curran's seat, makes a good point .

Labour in Glasgow, she says, need to look to themselves for the perceived underspend in Glasgow.

The Government has had to spend half a £bn making the correct decision to mitigate the bedroom tax and other welfare cuts, but with a budget which has shrunk by 10% because of coalition cuts.

And let's not forget that the Labour Party at Westminster - and yes, that includes Margaret Curran MP - voted with the Tories just a month or so ago to a further £30bn of austerity cuts.

It's the circle of lies which annoys people. Budget cut at Westminster = budget cut at Holyrood = budget cut in councils. It's the inevitability of it which is damning. So if Labour vote with the Tories for increased cuts at Westminster, they are voting for increased cuts at Holyrood which essentially means they voted for cuts at council level. Some of them would like to correct the cuts by making you pay more council tax though. So, bankers cause the banking crisis, but both the Tories and Labour target ordinary folk to pay the price.

Well said, Natalie.

**********

I may be wrong but I thought that Labour in Scotland wanted
to means test university education?

**********

Well done, Gordon.
Not bad earnings for a humble son of the manse.
Makes Rifkind and Straw look like the paupers they
claim to be.

**********

A much younger Murphy in his spiritual home.

I read that Murphy has announced that he will indeed stand as the UK Labour candidate for East Renfrewshire in the UK general election. 

Ruth Wishart wondered on Twitter what his constituents would think of that.

I'd say that they would, if they were thinking rationally, understand that they are being used to provide Murphy with a very generous salary and expenses for the next year and to provide him with the means by which he can continue to lead the Scottish branch office of the UK Labour Party.

In the wake of the scandals over Rifkind and Straw, it seems unlikely that Miliband will allow hiom to be both MP and MSP at the same time.

Munguin's mate Ted, met on line,
 would make a better FM than Spud.!

I'm not sure I'd bother if I were him. I reckon he has about as much chance of being first minister next year as Munguin's mate Ted... and he's not even standing!

THIS IS WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST...

I don't make a habit of knocking anyone's religion. I'm not religious, but I respect people who are, regardless of what that religion is. Nothing will stop that.

But seriously people... 

I think that pretty much regardless of who forms the government in an independent Scotland they are not going to stop you celebrating the birth of Jesus. Nor will they stop Diwali or Eid al Fitr or anything that is currently allowed.

And yes, people will still be allowed to make Christmas into a great huge festival of greed, booze, food and over indulgence, just as you are at the moment in the United Kingdom, and I have absolutely no doubt that there will still be people who will say, as I have heard them say in our present constitutional arrangement:... 'Christmas is brill. Dunno why they have to spoil it with all this religious stuff...'

So, you dear Young Scots Against Separation, keep taking the meds and let this be one less thing for you to worry your silly wee heads about. Uncle Munguin promises...

**********
Oh and if that wasn't enough madness for one night...

'JUST SAY NAW', SAYS THE OTHER GEORGE

I just spotted this advertisement for Grubby Galloway, who is touring Scotland putting his take on independence.

Given that he's an English MP, it's no great surprise that he's a part of the Better Not campaign.

Luke Mason presents

‘Just Say Naw’

An Evening with George Galloway

Saturday 9^th November 2013, 7.30pm @ Whitehall Theatre, Dundee

As the independence referendum draws ever closer, George Galloway will be passionately putting his case forward for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

George will be speaking on a range of issues affecting the people of Scotland and he will be dismissing the grudge politics of the Scottish nationalists in creating an ‘us vs them’ mentality.

George believes that the UK is not separated by borders and signposts but by class, power and greed. If you want to witness this and interact with George on these issues then come along to ‘Just Say Naw! An Evening with George Galloway.’

Tickets: 

Full Price £12.00

Talking about greed, George is charging £12 a seat for his opinion, and all the while claiming money for being a full time MP. 

I look forward to saving £12.00.

QUESTIONABLE QUESTION TIME

Like many other people, I wrote a letter of complaint to the BBC over the choice of panelists for last night's 'Question Time'.

The BBC will, I am sure, in due course, acknowledge that I have written to them and will doubtless come up with some long winded management speak gobbledegook reply, about overall balance, and period of referendum campaign, etc.

In a debate clearly meant to be largely about the referendum (why otherwise invite an audience of only 16 and 17 year olds?*), it was odd that neither the YES campaign nor the NO campaign was invited to take part. Instead of that  the Respect MP from Bradford and the UKIP MEP for South East England were invited.

A cynic might think that with the dual disadvantage for UK viewers of the programme coming from Edinburgh, and having questions supposedly framed by 16 and 17 year olds, the largely English audience would give it a miss and  the ratings would suffer. So to spice it up, why not bring in two well known hopefully adversarial figures from England, to make the tv audience feel less alienated? (After all, the English audience neither know, nor care, who Robertson, Davidson, Riddoch or Sarwar are, and both Galloway and Farage are good tv.)

I'm glad to know that, among all the letters of complaint from unimportant ordinary people like me, the BBC will also have received a letter from the unaffiliated Electoral Reform  Society of Scotland. They may have to put a little more effort into answering this one.

Dear Ms Valentine

The Electoral Reform Society in Scotland seeks to inform and improve Scotland's democracy. With that in mind, we have being undertaking an inquiry into what a good Scottish democracy looks like.

A major theme that has emerged from this year long, citizen led inquiry, is the importance of the media to instruct, publicise and inform the debate. There has been support for a publicly funded media provider, but a strong sense that that body should be impartial and should seek to provide balanced and informed coverage of politics. Clearly this is of particular concern in the run up to the 2014 referendum.

We were concerned therefore to see the lineup for the BBC Question Time programme to be held in Edinburgh this evening (Thursday 13th June). Not only does the selection of panellists fail to represent the makeup of Scottish politics, but it also seems to be aimed more at pantomime than serious debate.

That this should be the case when the audience is, very pleasingly, to be made up of 16 and 17 year olds in recognition of the extension of the franchise to that group for the referendum is  worrying.

It seems to  show a lack of respect for these young audience members - implying that they do not deserve serious political debate. It also fails to allow them to hear from their elected representatives in this public debate forum which receives the widest of political attention. Two of the parties which will be competing for their vote in 2014 are unrepresented and the Yes and Better Together campaigns are needlessly unequally represented. Were this not bad enough, available spaces on the platform are taken instead by George Galloway MP and Nigel Farage MEP, two individuals and parties who are not represented in Scotland.

We welcome the decision to involve 16 and 17 year olds in a public debate about the referendum, but the chosen panelists do those 16 and 17 year olds a disservice as they will not be able to hear from the parties who represent them and who will be seeking their vote in 2014.

We would ask the BBC to urgently reconsider the panel, and at the very least to re-schedule a repeat of this edition of Question Time, but with a panel representative of Scottish politics that respects the BBC's role to be impartial and equal.

Yours sincerely

Willie Sullivan

* The programme actually was divided up by topic as follows (thanks for Rev Stu's research)

PRIVACY AND SURVEILLANCE:  15:47, INDEPENDENCE: 33:01, SYRIA: 7:28.

(By the way, I'd like to make it clear that I have not watched the programme. I wouldn't give them the audience numbers. My complaint is about the makeup of the panel; the exclusion of two parties which have representation in parliament and the inclusion of two parties which have none.)

GORGEOUS GEORGE GRACES US WITH HIS CANDIDACY

So George Galloway... you know... the gorgeous one (some say), who thought that our politicians were “verbal stumblebums, who would regard the term ‘nonentity’ as a compliment”, and who compared Iain Gray and Alex Salmond in debate, to the Krankies, has decided that he would bring “a touch of class” to Holyrood.

Well, talking of Kranks, or cranks, George, how would it be if we pointed out that at least neither Mr Salmond nor Mr Gray have ever appeared on television, at least to my knowledge, in a pink leotard. (And, may I say, I fervently hope that they maintain that happy record.)

George Galloway has always been a tad on the weird side, but he is well educated and erudite and so he easily progressed from humble beginnings on Dundee’s council to be the youngest ever chairman of the Dundee Labour Party, General Secretary of War on Want, grace the floor of the Commons for Hillhead and later Kelvin and even later Bethnal Green in England.

He’s done some good stuff (pretty much sticking it to Tony Blair, which will always get a vote in my book, calling Bush and Blair liars and suggesting that troops should refuse to obey illegal orders in an illegal war), although there is no doubt that, along the way, he has become more and more strange, to the point where one wonders about madness of some sort.

The long and flowery speeches which at the same time impressed and caused amusement, especially when he let a Senate Committee have it in the neck, have become ridiculously pompous and overblown and, particularly following his appearance in the Big Brother House, he has become more of a figure of fun than anything else.

The thing I admire most about George is that he simply refuses to let authority beat him into submission. He uses his freedom to speak his mind to full effect and to the evident embarrassment of people who expect lesser beings to fold tents and be compliant. Indeed on an occasion when he was suspended from parliament for 18 days his response was: "To be deprived of the company for 18 days of the honourable ladies and gentleman behind me [in parliament] will be painful ... but I'm intending to struggle on regardless... What really upset them [the committee] is that I always defend myself... I am not a punch bag. If you aim low blows at me, I'll fight back". Would that some of the rest of the spineless morons who inhabit the green benches had half as much pluck... but most of them are looking for the main chance.

So now, and only because he has been thrown out of his seat in London, coming third behind the Labour and Tory candidates, George has decided to add a bit of class to the Scottish parliament. Aye well, that’s what HE thinks. Perhaps the Scottish people will have a different idea.

As far as I’m concerned it’s not a bad thing. His candidature will be likely to take votes from Labour without him having a hope of winning. This can only be to the SNP’s advantage.

Much of the information in this article was gleaned for this article by Ruth Wishart, whom I always had down as a bit of a feminist. I was surprised then to read her sneering at the idea that George had dyed his beard. I wonder if she has ever referred to any female MPs pointing out that their hair colouring owed much to 4 hours with “Raymonde”.